Stellaris 3.99.7 'Phoenix' Open Beta Release Notes

[gekp78]

So, I like the zone system, I really do. But buildings are a mess now. You don't really have a way of knowing what buildings can be built in a zone until it is built, and there are so many buildings that do so little. And there are so few buildings that can be built inside the unity zone. The monument requires a unity zone, but can't be built in one? Insane. The First League special building, gives buffs to bureaucrats, but can't be built in a unity zone (I get its a special building so hasn't probably be even looked at, but still).

The most egregious buildings I feel are the monument, medical center, and holotheater chains. You have five free building slots on your planet, and these three chains take up a total of 8 or 9 slots. These three in particular need to go back to being upgrades, with their effects bundled. I mean, even with that its still 3 of 5 of your free building slots. We are supposed to be losing the amenities zone, but we need amenities on every planet, and you want me to use almost all of my free building slots on them. What about my other civic-specific buildings?

 

[Foxosaur]

I had a thought about the cosmic storm change to not doing devastation.

I think it's a mistake to do this unless its purely to help with the Beta in someway. The way I see them is this....

Cosmic Storms cause increasing devastation over a period of up to 80 years. That high duration potential is so that a player has the capacity to decide to mitigate and take advantage of the other bonuses given. To be honest, despite owning the DLC, I just don't bother(trying to mitigate or take advantage of) but I'm not really a true 4X player neither - but I can live with the devastation whilst my focus is always on other parts of the game.

If you ask me though what could be done to make players happier - in my Huge galaxies, I often see storms incapsulate 12 systems maybe. Well if that lands too squarely on a empire, that could be the whole empire and all planets. I suppose that might annoy someone who is struggling to balance to their economy (early-mid game).

I don't have a comparison of how usually big storms are in Medium galaxies but I just wonder if they are too big on their default settings also too numerous?

I personally thought Devastation was okay as a negative, its just temporary but maybe they just linger and are too impact too long - so maybe they should move through a galaxy faster more often than not.



---

Another perspective to take is, maybe you plan on considering cosmic storms as just something people put the equivalent of Wind turbines up, there is no real net negative aside committing to some building to take advantage of <whatever> bonus. In other words, rather than something a player avoids, you instead remove the negatives and turn it into something a Empire should want to lure towards them.

Well, I dunno, that would be quite a change and simplify them, I hope you would replace that negative with some other mechanic though.

 

[ShaTiK]

An alternative would be to bring back the Industrial districts, or let worlds have two City districts. Either of those should substantially increase the flexibility of the new economic system.

The additional district could be put in the UI place currently reserved for displaying zones/buildings, which could instead be displayed in the box currently showing planet production/deficits whenever a district/zone is selected (i.e. when no district/zone is selected the box displays production/deficit information, and when a district/zone is selected, the box displays the zone/building information). At least if my reading gave me the right impression of how the UI works.

Welcome to the 'give us more districts' club. Gotta say tho it's a pretty sad place, on a account of devs seemingly totally opposed to this idea.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

Welcome to the 'give us more districts' club. Gotta say tho it's a pretty sad place, on a account of devs seemingly totally opposed to this idea.

I have been somewhat sceptical about the removal of Industrial districts from the beginning... being able to adjust Consumer Goods production independently of their consumption (Specialist/Elite jobs etc.) is about as important as being able to adjust the production of basic resources independently of their consumption (industrial jobs, living standards, pop upkeeps, etc.).

That being said, have they actually stated an opposition to the addition of one more district?
The only thing I have (more or less) noticed being decisively shot down is abandoning the new economic model.

Unless they have openly ruled out ever adding more districts, my interpretation is that such changes are not ruled out for the time after the release of 4.0; ruling out the addition of another district in the 4.0 launch is not an obstacle to that, as they need to go into "feature freeze mode" very early in order to ensure that they release a working product on the stated release date. Better to release a not-yet-perfected product that works more or less as designed, than to release a theoretically perfected design that is so bug-ridden it does not work at all.

 

[Chaosboy]

My remarks about this week's beta:

• The game starts to be really enjoyable again, I think the devs are on the right track with the economy changes, but it will take some time (maybe more than a month) to really chisel out everything
• It is not that hard to keep the economy alive right now as it was in 3.99.5, but it is still a challenge to create a booming economy. I felt that it is not really worth to go wild at the beginning.
• Migration is still far from perfect. Civilians do not like worker strata jobs on other planets. i hope it will be changed, because it can be a real fuss to manually relocate pops.
• It was nice to see pop growth/decline again, but I hope we will be able to see some summary about why they grow/decline - right now pop growth feels out of hand.
• Stored research is still not used
• I really like that there are only 2 zones for the city districts - it make less tedious to manage them, and now my heart does not hurt when I have to sacrifice 1 (out of 3) research/forge/unity zone for an urban zone

 

[ShaTiK]

That being said, have they actually stated an opposition to the addition of one more district?

The question was asked a hundred times and not once we were given a detailed answer. The only answers were:
- they didn't want to clutter the UI - you know, this tiny window that inefficiently uses 1/4 of 1080p display
- they want zones because this system is better suited for their future plans, with no detailed explanation on what these actually are

I know I sound angry or entitled, but these are bullshit answers.

Again, this is such an obvious choice - place zones on top of existing districts and add at least 2 more - research and generic urban (for trade or unity), or even just 3 generic ones modified by zones. The fact that they passed this version and went with current implementation, at least in my eyes, says there is some reason they are totally against adding districts and maybe they are opposed to district idea in general. No clue why they left the most boring ones (rural) that are also the least used from midgame onwards.

See, that's the whole friggin issue. We are groping in the dark, throwing question into empty air, trying among ourselves to reconstruct devs logic and offer alternative versions. And all of this is an absolutely futile effort for we don't know anything really. Like the idea of getting more building slots for goverment zone and removing third zone from the city - on what polling data they decided this is a good idea? Ostensibly they based it on player feedback, but all I saw were players saying 'there are too many things I need to have per planet, give us more universal building slots', not once I saw 'we don't need third zone'. Again, I'm not saying devs should tell everything, but conducting an open beta with stated goal of 'getting player feedback' and not giving simple rundown of new systems (dev diaries were too vague) is just ... well, frankly strange. I cannot give feedback if I don't know what is the goal. But maybe that's me

 

[fourteenfour]

I have had a few district only proposals but I think I never took it far enough. I was looking for a shark to jump so I spent a minute to find one. how simple can we make it all with districts and then planet and empire unique only buildings.

Hence... I found a REALLY BIG Shark. The goal is to make colonies simple. so its down to six districts which fit nicely on the screen 3x2. each type would have unique buildings. the key to fixing jobs and all that mess is to have the only input be pops to any district or building.

Specialist are City - Alloy - Science.

Workers would have food - unity - trade.

Trade is the default job of anyone not doing something else and trade is the currency needed to keep people happy in their strata along with anything else. In my model trade replaces energy, consumer goods, and amenities. energy does not exist anymore - its just assumed - minerals are gone because we don't care. there is no input to specialist jobs other than pops. Oh yeah, food is not just anything green - it is anything needed to feed a pop of any kind.

I am not going to share what I am smoking. However the economy has been to advanced for PDX to write code where the AI can handle it and most of this comes from balancing inputs into jobs and just by eliminating those it becomes just a matter of staffing and we really lose nothing except drudgery.

 

[Critical Ethics]

I think the beta has left a bad taste in a lot of player's mouths. With this been the last patch those players will be in the dark with how the development is going. I hope the developers will be transparent and provide updates to how these systems are developing to help put these worried player's at ease.

I'm one of these worried players who has been playing Stellaris for years, I'm so used to how the game has been, that many of these changes worry me. I know the beta isn't going to be the end product. But it is a taste of what's to come. I see the potential in the idea of zones. But the way buildings are handled and changed within the beta has worried me. The effective reduction of building slots through restrictions and limitations concerns me. We've gone from being able to place 11 buildings freely with few restrictions to having overall more slots but those slots have limitations.

Keep in mind that your empire doesn't need to spend any of its generic slots on research buildings or admin buildings because those jobs come from zoned districts now, SR refineries hang off the rural districts, and the resource boost buildings use the slots built into zones. We may have fewer free-form slots but there's far fewer economy buildings competing for them, especially when looked at from the overall empire level.

One building and it's upgrade I want putting back together is the holo-theatre. So their main purpose is to provide entertainer jobs to solve amenities issues.
[Snip]
I want gene-clinics and medical workers to work as they did before. I don't want to have to build 3 separate buildings to gain the benefits we did previously.

Amenities are being reworked from an amenities zone to, uh, not, so they're very up in the air right now. I'm curious how they will turn out.

We've gone from having buildings that would upgrade to having buildings and their upgrades been separated, with many questionable changes made to their effects. I know that some things will have to change to work with the new systems. I just want some of these buildings to retain their effects and upgrades. I'd rather have new buildings than recycle older ones. [Snip]
I want the resource boosting buildings to be put back together and provide their increases. Add in separate buildings for extra jobs and job efficiency. Like auxiliary generators or hydroponic farms. Why not make automation buildings provide job efficiency?

I want the alloy plants and consumer goods factories to be put back together with their upgrades and provide their scaling output bonus and upkeep costs. Add in new buildings for the extra jobs and upkeep reduction.

I wouldn't mind if research labs were changed to work similarly. Increasing research output and job upkeep. With new buildings to provide job specializations, upkeep reduction and the research institute going back to being empire unique.

Ignoring the amenity buildings for now, think of the zone building slots as a build your own resource booster. Instead of one slot with a fixed upgrade path you have three slots and (according to dev replies) accumulate > 3 upgrades and you choose which three you want to make your "building" out of. That the repeatable static job amount buildings mess with this is one of the reasons why I don't think they should be zone buildings.

I agree very strongly that if they mess up the buildings it'll all go to heck, and if the repeatable resource job buildings stay as they are that will be... a concern.

The automation building will apparently reduce the pops needed to fill a job.

 

[Masked Ermine]

let me remind you that devastation was the least of your issues
all other effects of storms will still apply on your colonies and ships
devastation merely was the most obvious thing to notice because it can lead to low stability and rebellions, while the other effects will just kill your economy for a few years and you will just think that you need to expand a bit more because economy fluctuates all the time

also espionage is great, being able to steal technology or favors is hella useful
it also adds realism when you don't automatically know everything that's going on in another empire and instead need to investigate first
and it helps slow down the aggressive expanse a bit because if you rush ahead into unknown empires they may have a better fleet than you and flip the table on you - in addition you would have no clue where their star bases and colonies are, which obviously complicates conquering those a fair bit XD
the early warning system for AIs planning to attack you is also useful, gives you time to bring your fleets into position and potentially avoid a war entirely

Eh I assume they are all aggressive and more powerful until I confirm it. Or I butter them up until they give me shared sensors for 10 dark matter units...which honestly tends to be faster than doing espionage.

 

[cxt100s]

I just played around with save-game editing for zones, and what I'm seeing is very promising. It seems like you can have more than two zones, even though the UI only shows the first two. Furthermore, the number of zones seems to be limited to the number of city districts. (You can actually have more zones, but they won't add any jobs.)

However, the game does not divide the number of jobs per district beyond two, so you get more jobs than you should.

Here's Earth:

planets=
{
    planet=
    {
...
        3=
        {
            name=
            {
                key="NAME_Earth"
            }
...
            districts=
            {
                0 40 41 42
            }

District 0 is our city district:

districts=
{
    0=
    {
        zones=
        {
            0 16777259 16777258 16777256 16777257 16777291 16777266
        }
        type="district_city"
        level=6
    }

What I said earlier ("the number of zones seems to be limited to the number of city districts") is technically incorrect. The first zone is the special government zone; the number of zones is actually limited to the number of city districts (level) plus one.

Anyway, I configured the zones to mimic the old default configuration:

zones=
{
...
    16777256=
    {
        type="zone_industrial"
    }
    16777257=
    {
        type="zone_industrial"
    }
    16777258=
    {
        type="zone_industrial"
    }
    16777259=
    {
        type="zone_trade"
    }
    16777266=
    {
        type="zone_unity"
    }
    16777291=
    {
        type="zone_research"
    }

Again, this actually works!

However, the number of jobs is too high. Even though the city district is split into six zones (ignoring the special government zone), we are getting, per city district: 30 physicists, 30 biologists, 30 engineers, 100 bureaucrats, 150 metallurgists, 150 artisans, and 100 traders. It seems that the part of the game that divides jobs is not aware of the extra zones.

 

[Xaelyn]

However, the number of jobs is too high. Even though the city district is split into six zones (ignoring the special government zone), we are getting, per city district: 30 physicists, 30 biologists, 30 engineers, 100 bureaucrats, 150 metallurgists, 150 artisans, and 100 traders. It seems that the part of the game that divides jobs is not aware of the extra zones.

There is no dividing of jobs, building a second zone doubles your job count it doesn't split the jobs between the two.

 

[cxt100s]

There is no dividing of jobs, building a second zone doubles your job count it doesn't split the jobs between the two.

Oh wow, sure enough. I could've sworn I saw somewhere that zones modify the allocation of jobs rather than providing jobs themselves, but now I can't find it - I guess I was hallucinating.

It seems strange that it takes only 10 days and 300 minerals to double the number of jobs on a planet, while it takes 480 days and 500 minerals to build each city district, which only incrementally increases the number of jobs.

 

[Ikael]

I really think that for this zone system to work, zones ought to unlock not specialized building slots per se, but rather building upgrades or certain building types.

As in, any planet might build any basic building by default (say, holotheaters or research labs), but if you want something like Research complexes or Mineral Purification plants, you ought to build their special zones first.

 

[Ilab]

So, saying that there is some people that put 0 effort to learn that an insult? In which country?

1st of all, it is true, Cosmic Storms (the DLC) had not been out for 2 hours and there where ppl complaining about them, it is OBJECTIVELY impossible for anyone to learn much from storms in less than 2 hours, so this by itself is enough evidence that some people didn't take the time to learn them.

But, funnily enough, if you read Thiend's post about it, and how he says several things that are just incorrect, then my point is even more proven.

Lots of people come and say: 'hey, X mechanic sucks because <insert reasons here>' a lot of the time it is people not knowing something, not every single time ofc, but a LOT of the time. People that don't know how something works should first learn about that so that when they talk about it they do so with arguments. Is precisely that behavior that generates disinformation balls (yeah, even for games).

And again, saying that some people have not put the effort to learn storms is a truth, and as far as I am aware in no place of this planet saying that is an insult. But perhaps some people here are from the moon or something...

EDIT: I love that some people disagree. I wonder with which fact they disagree with. Perhaps it is that saying the truth is an insult? Nah, certainly it is not something so obviously incorrect, it must be the moon part...

 

[Critical Ethics]

Oh wow, sure enough. I could've sworn I saw somewhere that zones modify the allocation of jobs rather than providing jobs themselves, but now I can't find it - I guess I was hallucinating.

It seems strange that it takes only 10 days and 300 minerals to double the number of jobs on a planet, while it takes 480 days and 500 minerals to build each city district, which only incrementally increases the number of jobs.

Districts add jobs, zones decide what jobs they add, and zone slot buildings modify how those jobs behave. Zoning isn't really about building large-scale infrastructure, that's what you do when you build the city. It's more of an administration or eminent domain action of designating a bunch of formerly civilian operated land and industry as Government Science Employment Areas. Their beakers and microscopes and stuff come from their CG upkeep and fancy stuff like particle accelerators are covered by the zone slot buildings.

If you don't designate both zones straight away there's still "jobs" for the people there, they're just civilian jobs that only directly benefit the government by providing trade via taxes. I do think it would be good to somehow stagger onboarding jobs if a colony is relatively matured by the time you unlock the second zone though.

 

[ItThatAltersSanity]

Don't be hard on yourself. Vast majority of "negative" feedback about the beta is honest, constructive, well-researched, good faith, impersonal and tested criticism. It is not hate for the sake of hate, it is people pointing out problems before those problems could affect something they enjoy.

It is more concerning to read from people who approve of everything, don't question anything, complain about complaining and prioritize feelings of the design team over making sure the game would be in better shape (not talking about people who make genuine "positive" feedback).

And to reinforce that message, there's an early access feedback forum for a different game that I'm vaguely tracking. There's where you find unconstructive "negative feedback". People venting hate with no arguments or overly general sweeping statements. People desperately disparaging other players with a different opinion. There'll always be some "I don't think this person's opinion should count" jockeying but here, it's a lot more civilised.

 

[Red Death]

Oh wow, sure enough. I could've sworn I saw somewhere that zones modify the allocation of jobs rather than providing jobs themselves, but now I can't find it - I guess I was hallucinating.

It seems strange that it takes only 10 days and 300 minerals to double the number of jobs on a planet, while it takes 480 days and 500 minerals to build each city district, which only incrementally increases the number of jobs.

Districts add jobs, zones decide what jobs they add, and zone slot buildings modify how those jobs behave. Zoning isn't really about building large-scale infrastructure, that's what you do when you build the city. It's more of an administration or eminent domain action of designating a bunch of formerly civilian operated land and industry as Government Science Employment Areas. Their beakers and microscopes and stuff come from their CG upkeep and fancy stuff like particle accelerators are covered by the zone slot buildings.

If you don't designate both zones straight away there's still "jobs" for the people there, they're just civilian jobs that only directly benefit the government by providing trade via taxes. I do think it would be good to somehow stagger onboarding jobs if a colony is relatively matured by the time you unlock the second zone though.

To be fair, I also remember the original design was indeed that for example the city district provided 300 Civilian jobs (per district slot used), with each of the three zones replacing 100 of those with for example metallurgist jobs.

However I don't think that's been implemented yet, with the zones instead just adding jobs on top of what the district provides. Because of that, I am not sure if job replacement is still in the plans or not.

 

[Critical Ethics]

To be fair, I also remember the original design was indeed that for example the city district provided 300 Civilian jobs (per district slot used), with each of the three zones replacing 100 of those with for example metallurgist jobs.

However I don't think that's been implemented yet, with the zones instead just adding jobs on top of what the district provides. Because of that, I am not sure if job replacement is still in the plans or not.

I was thinking that but I wasn't sure if I was remembering right. I'm curious if that was dropped just for the beta for time or a deliberate design decision. There being a limit on employable Civilians might make people value them more and distinguish between the civilian economy vs the fully unemployed.

It could also open up some fun design space for zone and capital buildings depending on how they interact with the employable civilian limit. E: an automation building in the capital zone freeing up civilians for colonising without impacting your trade income, for example.

 

[GrandEurypterid]

You know what I wouldn't mind? Being able to manually designate a preferred civilian count for the planet somehow. Maybe Civilians having a 'lock' slider so you can choose how many count as 'working a job' rather than 'unemployed', or having certain jobs like Culture Workers being 'employed' civilian variants, or even just having a checkbox, so you can have them immigrate or remain in place rather than emigrate in certain scenarios. If monuments are civilian-buffing, and they're one of the few easily-scalable ways to gain amenities on a planet without an Urban Zone, then having a way to maintain their presence would be nice.

 

[Miridan]

Oh wow, sure enough. I could've sworn I saw somewhere that zones modify the allocation of jobs rather than providing jobs themselves

I was thinking that but I wasn't sure if I was remembering right.

You remember it correctly. Some quotes from DD №371

• Districts provide a base number of Jobs for each level of development.
• Zones manipulate what Jobs are provided by their District

If you build a Foundry Zone, the City District will replace some of their Civilian capacity and housing with Metallurgist jobs for each level of development. If you then build a Factory Zone, the City District will provide both Metallurgist and Artisan jobs, but with further reductions to their Citizen capacity.

Looks like they silently abandoned this idea